Eight Intertwined

72 - Father

H'aanit closed the door carefully behind herself as she walked back into the inn room she and Primrose were sharing throughout their stay in Stonegard. She wasn't entirely sure how long she had been out by the Spectrewood simply crying for reasons that she struggled to describe beyond her own skills of reason and rationality, but she was glad to be back. It had taken a miracle for her face to be wiped clean of tears and red marks, but H'aanit was relieved that nobody had been able to tell that she had been crying for so long. Linde was remaining closer to her than usual though, a lingering trace of her protectiveness after all the horrors that the day had shown to them. 

H'aanit had been expecting to glance up and see the room empty, but much to her surprise, Primrose and Ophilia were both sitting on the former's bed. H'aanit watched them for a long moment before correcting her expression back to its typical neutrality. "Goode afternoon," she greeted simply before sitting down on her own bed. Linde sat down at her feet, and the huntress reached one hand down to stroke gently at the snow leopard's head. H'aanit was silently relieved that Linde was so good at reading her emotions; it certainly made it easier for H'aanit to find comfort when she struggled to articulate aloud just what was bothering her. 

Ophilia and Primrose glanced to one another for a moment that seemed to last much too long in H'aanit's eyes. The cleric rose to her feet and took a careful step towards the huntress, almost as if she was afraid of what was going to happen if she crossed too many lines. "Are you okay?" she whispered, treating the words as sacred glass. 

H'aanit looked up at Ophilia and prayed that she didn't look as worn down as she felt. Before H'aanit had the chance to say anything, she was cut off by Ophilia interjecting. "I'm sorry about what happened to your master," the cleric whispered into the silence. "I wish there was something I could do to solve the problem right now, but... It seems like we won't have any easy solutions until we can go to see that woman in Stillsnow."

"Susanna," H'aanit finished for her simply. She shifted her attention back to Linde a moment later, desperate to say something more but ultimately uncertain as to what she was meant to tell the cleric and dancer. What could she say? There was no easy solution for anything that they were being faced with, and she knew it. Ophilia was right in saying that they were fumbling in the dark until they could go back to Stillsnow, but H'aanit couldn't ask everybody to drop what they were trying to accomplish in the name of her own quest. That simply didn't feel right to her, and she had no idea what would be waiting for her in Stillsnow on top of that. For all she knew, it was for the best that they couldn't return for a while yet; they had caused a notable upheaval the last time they were there, and H'aanit couldn't say for sure if the lingering traces of Rufus' ring would take that lying down or not. 

Ophilia nodded. "Yeah," she hummed. She fell silent once again before she sighed and glanced up to H'aanit once more. "I'm sorry about all of this. Fearing the loss of someone you care about... It's terrible."

H'aanit looked up to meet Ophilia's gaze once again and saw that the cleric's expression had been torn to shreds by some unknown touch of grief. "Your father... Thou art thinking of him, yes?" H'aanit questioned as soon as she recognized that expression a bit more than she probably should have. 

Ophilia hesitated before nodding. "He's still sick back home in Flamesgrace... And I'm holding tightly to the hope that there's something I'll be able to do to see him again before he passes on," she murmured. "But just sitting around and waiting for that time to come is agonizing. I don't think that I would ever be able to imagine walking into the forest and seeing... Well..."

"Stone," H'aanit finished for her, uncertain as to how else she was meant to say it. All of a sudden, her body felt tense again, like she was going to start to crumble if she wasn't careful. How could she still feel so fragile? She had just spent what felt like an eternity crying her eyes out near the Spectrewood, and it had been the greatest period of sorrow H'aanit had ever known. The last thing she wanted to do was repeat it when she was already exhausted as could be.